Dynamic ViewBag in ASP.NET MVC 3 - RC 2 (Weblogs @ ASP.NET)

Earlier today Scott Guthrie announced the ASP.NET MVC 3 - Release Candidate 2. I installed the new version right after the announcement, since I'm looking forward to see the new features. Among the other cool features included in this release candidate, there is a new ViewBag dynamic Views that can be used to pass data controllers as well as you use ViewData dictionary []. What is great and beautiful ViewBag (despite the name) is that its a dynamic type, which means that you can dynamically get/set values and add any number of additional fields without the need of strongly typed classes.

To see the difference, take a look at the following examples.

Example - in ViewData

Controller

public ActionResult Index()
{
The list of colors = new list ();
Colors.Add ("Red");
Colors.Add ("green");
Colors.Add ("Blue");

ViewData ["listColors"] = colors.
ViewData ["dateNow"] = DateTime.Now.
ViewData ["name"] = "Hajan".
ViewData ["age"] = 25;

Back to View().
}

View (ASPX see Engine)

My name is
<%: ViewData["name"] %>,
<%: ViewData["age"] %>years old.

    
I love the following colours:

<% foreach (var color in ViewData["listColors"] as List){ %>


• 
  <%: color %>
  

<% } %>

<%: ViewData["dateNow"] %>

(I know the code might look more like own knife display engine, but few important right? point)

Example - using ViewBag

Controller

public ActionResult Index()
{
The list of colors = new list ();
Colors.Add ("Red");
Colors.Add ("green");
Colors.Add ("Blue");

ViewBag.ListColors = color. //Colors is list
ViewBag.DateNow = DateTime.Now.
ViewBag.Name = "Hajan".
ViewBag.Age = 25;
Back to View().
}

You can see the difference?

View (ASPX see Engine)

My name is
<%: ViewBag.Name %>,
<%: ViewBag.Age %>years old.

    
I love the following colours:

<% foreach (var color in ViewBag.ListColors) { %>



• 
  <%: color %>
  

<% } %>

<%: ViewBag.DateNow %>

In my example, now I must cast ViewBag.ListColors list ViewBag is dynamic! On the other hand the ViewData ["key"] is object.

I would like to note that if you use ViewData ["ListColors"] = color;in your controller, you can retrieve the view to ViewBag.ListColors.

In both cases is